The two types of vaccines developed through the Moscow-based Gamaleya Research Institute — liquid and powder for injection — will be tested on two teams of volunteers, each of 38 people, he said. Participants will be isolated in two Moscow hospitals.
“Conducting clinical trials in the middle of a pandemic is a situation. That is why unprecedented measures were taken: all potential participants in the trial . . . spent two weeks (in quarantine) in a health facility under observation,” the ministry said, adding that the first injections are scheduled for Thursday and Friday.
The Gamaleya Institute made headlines last month when its director, Professor Alexander Gintsburg, said he and researchers had tested the vaccine themselves before human studies began.
He did not specify how many other people injected the substance, but told the Interfax news agency that no one has experienced side effects: “Everyone is alive, healthy and happy. “Speaking to RIA Novosti, Gintsburg insisted that he and others were not aiming to test the vaccine, but simply to “protect (the virus) with the vaccine. “
“This is not a rehearsal. This is self-defense so that we can continue to function (with the vaccine). Losing a limb (to the virus) would delay work. Knowing what is coming, they consciously took this step and so “I did it,” Gintsburg said.
Gintsburg’s comments drew complaints from the Russian medical community. The country’s Association of Clinical Research Organizations issued a statement condemning the researchers’ moves as a “flagrant violation of the very foundations of clinical research, Russian law, and universally accepted foreign regulations. “
The agreement accused the Russian government of rushing researchers into full clinical trials of COVID-19 vaccines, saying “a limit has been set. “
Many scientists realize this, but they have become involved in this rat race, hoping to please those in power. »Days before Gintsburg revealed that he had tested the vaccine, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov offered “words of admiration” to the scientists who were testing the vaccine on themselves.
“Let’s not call the facility, the others. But they are others who are fanatical about what they do in the sense of the word,” Peskov told the Kommersant newspaper in an interview in mid-May.
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